Monday strike might be canceled in honor of President Clinton's
Hours before the arrival of US President Bill Clinton, Palestinians in Gaza speak of their leader, President Yasser Arafat as being the strong partner to the US in the region, as opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu who has lost much of the US support.
Reports from Gaza said that intensive consultations have taken place over the past few hours between PNA officials and representatives of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails in order to cancel the call for a commercial strike on Monday, when President Clinton arrives in Gaza. The prisoners and their supporters outside, including activists of PLO mainstream FATAH movement of Yasser Arafat have called on Israel to release political prisoners in conjunction with the Wye Agreements. Israeli sources have blamed FATAH for the current round of violence and unrest in the Occupied Territories against the background of Israel's refusal to release the prisoners.
The effort by Palestinian officials to cancel the strike stems from the fact that most of the Palestinians highly appreciate the visit to Gaza by President Clinton. The mere fact that President Clinton will land in Gaza International Airport is a sign of US recognition of Palestinian sovereignty and therefore, no strikes will be allowed to disrupt this historical step, Palestinian sources said in Gaza Saturday night.
President Clinton will attend on Monday a Palestine National Council session which will ratify a letter sent by President Arafat to President Clinton affirming that the national charger clauses that call for Israel's destruction are not part of the charter anymore. Israel, Palestinian observers argue, will have to live with President Clinton's evaluation of the Monday session, regardless of repeated statements by Netanyahu in which he said that the PNC has to literally vote again on the cancellation of those clauses. Should Israel differ with the Palestinians on the details of Monday session, it would then have to argue with the US president and not with Arafat, the said. "President Clinton will unprecedently be put in a position to defend the Palestinian stand against that of Israel," they noted.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Shimon Peres told Israel's Channel 2 special news show that the current state of affair in relations between Israel and the US might lead to an open showdown with the Clinton Administration. "The current debate on the PNC session and the Palestinian national charter is irrelevant at all," he said. " Who needs Abu Nidal or other splinter groups of the PLO to recognize our existence? This illustrates lack of responsibility and lack of experience," he said.